


Candles Burning Low Before the Dawn

by Moonfireflight



Series: The Abyssal Celebrant [3]
Category: Final Fantasy XIV
Genre: 5.0 spoilers, AU, Aether Sex (Final Fantasy XIV), Experimental, Gen, Lahabrea talks a lot and tells you things the reader already knows, Love Confession, expected levels of weird aether/soul things, gender ambiguous reader, remembering a distant past, this is mostly just... really soft
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-01-24
Updated: 2020-01-24
Packaged: 2021-02-27 07:28:58
Rating: Mature
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 5,474
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/22383355
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Moonfireflight/pseuds/Moonfireflight
Summary: A continuation of my NG+ series, Lahabrea and the Warrior of Light have choices to make that will impact their growing relationship and the fate of the star.I consent to the OTW terms of service and explicitly deny rights to reprint, share, or redistribute this work on any platform not owned by OTW. #
Relationships: Lahabrea (Final Fantasy XIV)/Reader, Lahabrea/Warrior of Light (Final Fantasy XIV)
Series: The Abyssal Celebrant [3]
Series URL: https://archiveofourown.org/series/1601428
Comments: 8
Kudos: 26





	Candles Burning Low Before the Dawn

Clutching your newest haul of research to your chest, you wiggle your fingers in your pocket, trying vainly to reach your key. As you sigh and readjust the mass of books and papers, you catch the faintest scent of smoke and pause. A deep, slow intake of air calms your racing pulse - this is no uncontrolled fire, but more akin to candles recently extinguished. You lean closer, ear nearly to the door, but only hear the quiet brush of wind across sand and through leaves. 

It’s not that you fear an intruder - There’s only one other person… being… that has access to your home, and you would welcome his presence. He’s simply never made a habit of lingering or awaiting your return. Key in hand at last, your fingers curl around the door handle, opening it with deliberate care. Though there’s no need to sneak into your own home, you can’t shake the feeling that you are disturbing a long-forgotten temple or intruding upon something sacred. 

Nothing unusual greets you upon opening the door. Books safely deposited on your reading chair, you close the door carefully, and wade further into your dimly lit home. Here, there is silence between your hesitant footfalls.  _ Then where?  _ Rounding a corner, you see the curtains that frame your bedroom door are pulled to. The flickering of a fire in the hearth glimmers through the scant space between and around them. As you place your hand on the lush fabric, you catch the scent from earlier once more - 

Curling smoke wends its way through you and a synesthetic vision takes over your senses -  _ Candles sputter as their wicks are nearly subsumed in molten wax. It is not far from sunrise, but there is still work to be done in those small hours. Rolls of parchment and well-worn books surround you, leather, paper, and inks that smell of metal and carbonized wood. _ Beneath and through it is an undercurrent of spice - perhaps cloves, and a streak of lightning. The hair on your neck prickles as though lightning is about to strike but before you are only the curtains of deep green that frame the doorway. 

You shake your head to clear the afterimage. Despite the strangeness and unexpected clarity of the vision, it leaves something coiled and nested in your chest, familiar, alien. For one, you are certain beyond any doubt that you will find your rather elusive lover beyond the door. But for the rest of the images… the only way you could have experienced that exact moment before was in a dream, but casting it off as a mere fancy seemed somehow monstrous if the sudden weight in your chest was any indication. 

In recent days, you’d been picking up on a feeling that you were on the verge of a great revelation. It was as if every moment spent with Lahabrea brought you closer to that unknown eventuality. He’d once said that your truths would shatter in the face of his...

With another deep breath, this time passing over your dry lips, fearing another confounding vision could be stirred by the room’s perfume, you open the door with deliberate slowness. 

In the hearth, flames leap and flail in their confines of stone, as a horse champing at the bit, seeking freedom. Despite the ferocity of it, your room is abnormally dark. Shadows cling to every surface, not huddling away from the fire as they should. The scent of ash and spice and brewing storm is all around you, filling your lungs and weaving through your mind. Your head aches - an acute heaviness as you’ve felt before when trying to memorize too many new formulae at once. Hands pressed to your temples, you speak his name, though it seems only a whisper in the face of raging fire and torrents of memory. 

The room itself sucks in a breath and all at once the fire settles itself back to a dull grumble. Even still, there is now light here as the languid darkness that lay over your chamber coalesces, dripping down from the ceiling, creeping over furniture and shelf, slithering along the floor. And there before you is Lahabrea. Just as he first came to you - Firelight dancing upon graceful pauldrons, making his scowling mask come alive. You feel nothing of the prickling adrenaline you did that day, only a longing for his embrace. 

But something stays you. In those scant few fulms between you, there is a wall of uncertainty. After a false start, your voice fighting to break he weighty quiet, you ask, “Is everything alright?” 

The stoic cut of his lips and his momentary silence strike you with a bolt of worry, and his words drive it into your chest. “I should not be here.” 

You shake your head and take a hesitant step towards him, offering your hand. “You’re always welcome here. I consider this place yours as much as mine. Will you not stay with me tonight?” 

In a great rush of heat and pressing darkness, he is upon you, gripping the wrist of your proffered hand in one of his leather gloves. This is no promise of sensual captivity. It leaves you feeling like a child who’s been caught stealing. “W-what?” you stammer.

“Foolish. Have you not yet ascertained the machinations that brought us together?”

You meet the glare of his mask with your own eyes narrowed, brow pinched in a frown. “I was never fool enough to think your offer purely magnanimous.” Having to put your unspoken suspicions into words grated, and you tried to jerk your arm out of his iron grip to no avail. “My assumption is that you saw some certain destiny set for me and stepped in to alter it. Back then, you called me a ‘hero’ and hinted at great deeds I was fated to enact. If you thought I wanted to take down empires and spend my life fighting things like that Primal, then you’re the fool!” 

Lahabrea snarls, his mask now inches from your face. “Then why play along with this mummery?!” 

His attempts to intimidate you crash against a bulwark of frustration you hold up in trembling hands. “Because this is what I want! I only ever sought power and arcane knowledge to sate my curiosity and right my past wrongs. But…” 

“Such an enviable symbiotic accord we’ve come to!” You wince as his grip intensifies, and your half-formed reply lashes within you, seething at his ill-timed interruption. “Two parasites feeding off of each other. I win by blinding you to the truth, and you survive on the crumbs of knowledge I dole out. This is all but a means to an end!” 

“ _ How dare you! _ ” If only you could tear that mask from him and see his eyes, no doubt widening in shock at a mortal, at someone he apparently thinks so little of, spitting words of fire. “Had you listened for but another moment…” Your bracing ire leaves you as you’re now faced with an impending confession. You’d thought your feelings so obvious that putting them into words would somehow diminish them, but clearly, his ancient wisdom is lacking in that particular area of expertise. “Lahabrea. When I said I want  _ this _ , I meant this life with  _ you. _ ” 

Where his aether felt like daggers of levin waiting to strike a moment ago, it softens into smoke. “Ridiculous,” he says, his voice lacking its usual conviction. "You know nothing of me. Even I… so many of my own memories have been burned out or simply lost to the ages. You care for a simulacrum of me that you’ve built in your mind and have pinned your hopes on that falsehood.” 

With your free hand cupping his jaw, mirroring the gesture that set you on this path moons ago, you rebuke him softly. "No. I adore everything you’ve given me. I know it hasn’t been easy for you to open up, though I know not why. You are right on that score, but it only makes me yearn to learn more about you.” 

“... Fool!” He releases you and strides to the middle of the room. Standing before the hearth, this alien, shadowless being has never felt so human to you as he does at this moment. Shoulders slumped, hands clenching at his sides, you give him space to form the words that wage a war within. His masked visage is trained on the fire as he speaks at last. “You are  _ mortal _ .” That last word hangs heavy in the air, pinned in place by untold years of misery. “If I stay here, you will wither and die and I will continue on, somehow even less than what I am now!” 

Long had you feared that he would not or could not understand what is in your heart. Instead, he knows it  _ too _ well. Concealed behind the mask is a raw and ancient thing, shaking off rime and dust. 

You move to his side, eyes drawn to the hearth as well, not ready to face him. “That is not a fate I would force upon you.” Hoping your hushed words aren't lost to the leaping flames, you continue. “But, if you’ll have me, I’ll do everything in my power to give you joy, understanding, and comfort in the time that we have.” 

Lahabrea turns to you, that beautiful, awful mask robbing you of his reaction. Finally, he passes a hand over his face. You expect to see his glyph materialize, but instead, he grasps the mask itself. With one quick movement, he wrests it off his face and tosses it in amongst the glowing logs. Hungry flames devour, and you both watch the fire have its fill. As the last of its crimson patina gives way to black, he speaks. “I will not allow you to offer up such a gift to me without knowing the truth.” 

He guides you with hesitant touches to sit on the bed. The shadow under his eyes and the weary crease of his brow make you long to rest his head on your lap so you might ease his troubles, massaging his temples, combing your fingers through his hair... Once content that you are comfortable, he recedes to the center of the room, standing solemnly as he prepares to weave his tale. 

“Though you have no memory of the event, there are few places in Eorzea untouched by the scars of the most recent Calamity. From shore to shore and beyond, the Star bears wounds from which it may never heal.” You nod at him, curious if a bit fearful, as to where this story will lead. “For your people, this was a tragedy. For mine?” He pauses, lips curling into a ghost of a smile. His next words are delivered with a steely tone and clenched fist. “ _ A victory.”  _

He flinches not when you gasp, your fingers touching your lips in the hope that you can keep silent, waiting to hear the reason he would exult in such devastation. 

“You know of the shards, yes?” You nod. Though not common knowledge, this is something you’ve encountered in your readings. “Just as the very star was long ago split into 13 imperfect reflections, so was nearly every soul upon it. Every Calamity here on the Souce is the culmination of years of work and planning to make it happen just so. Building empires, influencing hearts and minds, inspiring ‘new’ discoveries,” he snorts. “What you call a Calamity, we call a  _ Rejoining _ . One of the disparate shards and its host of souls reunited with the Source.” 

His words made some sense, but you need to understand what could justify the loss of life at each Rejoining. Surely the devastation on the Source during each event was nothing compared to what happened on each shard! “But… what is the purpose of all of this?” 

Light catches in his eyes, white-gold shimmering with sparks. “And  _ that  _ is the true story that you must learn - The forgotten history of this world.” 

His tone changes in such a way that his voice resonates in the small chamber and leaves you spellbound. “Untold ages ago, the star was whole, every person nigh immortal, and we carried within us the power to create anything we could imagine without the need for crystals or other implements. Not one soul wanted for food or for shelter, nor any delight that we wished for. Perhaps someday…,” he trails off. “Feh. My memories of it are hardly worth sharing unless you enjoy paperwork, long-forgotten lectures, and watching an old man struggle to recall the days of his youth. A lost cause.” 

Despite the atrocities he’d confessed to, his brief melancholy and self-deprecation aches within you, and you clutch your hand to your chest. Silently, you pray that the gesture, though an automatic thing, lets him know you have not yet been swayed to leave his side. 

“But I digress. Those halcyon days were not meant to last. Reports came back from a faraway nation that had succumbed to an event of apocalyptic destruction. Cities burned to ash, their inhabitants hounded by horrific monsters spawned from, I later learned, their very fears.” 

Hearing this, you feel that tugging again at the edge of your memory. “Burned to ash, you say?” Streaks of orange, trails of fire flash before your eyes… the vision you saw when you first arrived in Ul’dah? “How?”

Lahabrea tilts his head and cocks an eyebrow at you. “A strange point to question in such a fantastical tale. I will explain in due time. As we rightly feared that this event might one day reach our great city of Amaurot, myself and the other 13 members of the ruling body, the Convocation of Fourteen, spent many sleepless nights deliberating and debating on how we might keep our people safe. I see it in your eyes - you understand. When I said that not all souls were sundered, myself and two of my compatriots were the only ones spared, though I cannot clearly recall the why of it.” 

You listen closely as he continues. “Alas, the great calamity was upon us before an accord would be reached. Hideous beasts manifested, stalking us through the streets and raining down meteors that set even the very stone alight. Thus, we come to another chasm in my recollections. The solution that we developed was to infuse the Star with a will of its own so that it might halt the devastation. It was a desperate gambit and such a mighty act of creation required an extraordinary amount of mana. To wit, half of our people gave up their lives to save the other half.” 

Lahabrea pauses, holding his hand up to his face in a gesture that resembles pinching the bridge of his nose, or as close to it as one can get wearing gloves such as his. An image of him hunched over a desk surrounded by mountains of books and parchments, trying to rub away the dark circles under his tired eyes springs to mind. What toll must this remembering be taking on him? He’d confirmed your curiosity about the vision, but you shove that thought aside for the moment as you listen. 

“Even though our total annihilation was halted, the star was deeply wounded and no new life would flourish in the aftermath. Thus half again of our remaining people gave their lives to restore the star back to a livable state for those left. To whom were those sacrifices granted?” He stands tall again, the picture of zeal and arrogance he’d painted when you first met him. In a practiced stage whisper, he answers his rhetorical question. “The very will of the star - our God,  _ Zodiark _ .” 

But his momentary bluster falters and his shoulders drop. “Ah, but my story grows long and I grow weary, yet there are two more vital points remaining. Zodiark has the power to bring back our friends, family, and loved ones, and return humanity to how it ever should have been. All it would have taken then was one last sacrifice - this time of the new life that flourished on the star.” The anger simmering behind his eyes is palpable. “Yet some feared His power and summoned a  _ foil _ to Zodiark. Miserable  _ Hydaelyn _ was birthed to strike him down, and in doing so, the star was split as it is now, and Zodiark locked away until all Rejoinings are complete.” 

Only a few fulms from you now, you can see him will his hands to relax from the claws they’d curled into, shaking them out at his sides. "So now you know the truth - Of your history, of the star, and of my nature and goals. I will stop this for  _ nothing _ . All acts must align with the will of Zodiark and our Great Work, for the sake of our people and the future of this star.” You steel yourself against the intensity of his gaze. You know the reason he’s entrusted you with his history, and the impending decision approaches. 

His voice comes softly now, but no less full of conviction. “I would keep you safe through all further Rejoinings until the day of our God's return, should it occur in your lifetime. Then, either way, I shall find your soul once more in our homeland if you'll have me, now knowing this."

You recall the tales of horror and loss from the Calamity. 

You weigh them against the cruelty you’ve seen in the world first hand even without any interference from Lahabrea and his kin. 

You’ve ever felt there is something fundamentally wrong in the world, but could never pinpoint the cause. Who could you blame for what seems like the natural state of affairs except perhaps for those that have more than they need yet allow others to starve and suffer? 

But beyond all that… “Lahabrea. In all my research, I’ve never heard a whisper of anything like this but I feel the truth of it down to my bones. When I asked you about the fate of your city, it was because I experienced an intense vision of being caught in a terrible meteor storm not long before we met. Perhaps this means nothing, as it seems every soul on the planet now lived an unfractured life back then, but...” 

He rushes over to you, gripping your shoulders, his eyes wide and alight with fiery intensity. “No, it means  _ everything _ . In the scant time we’ve spent together, I’ve begun to regain some parts of my memory from those days. They are inconsequential things, perhaps, but somehow your very presence has begun to suture shut a wound I’ve carried for eons. I thought them mere dreams at first, but the pieces all fit all too perfectly for this to be so.” 

And you feel it. The blind trust you’ve given him. The connection you’ve felt to Lahabrea well beyond lust and growing adoration… The missing piece. “... I knew you back then.” 

Lahabrea backs away half a step, vibrating with sudden, barely restrained anger. “I shouldn’t have said it. Don’t assume such a thing! And don’t let whatever illusions you’re crafting in your mind of those days sway you now. Should you but wish it, I will leave this place and never return. I’ll not meddle in your life, but neither will I cease my work.” 

“No.” 

He cringes as if struck, mirroring your answer with a single syllable etched deep with incredulity. “No?”

There’s so much you want to say, so many ways you want to tell him that… What, exactly? “I don’t want you to leave.” That’s the simple truth of it.

“You would betray your own people?”   
  
To an outsider, perhaps it would seem that way - that you’d weighed the souls of your kin and opted to trade them for one lifetime of hedonism. But if they could see the world through your eyes, know the horrors you’ve known, the choice would be an easy one. “I feel little kinship to them, having always felt adrift. Your tale gives a foundation to the misshapen manor I’ve built out of dreams, of beliefs, of fragments of thoughts. So this is my answer. Please, keep me at your side for so long as you will have me, and I will help your cause as I can.” 

He takes the hand that you offer, giving you a bemused smile. “You’re strange, you know that?” 

“This, coming from you?” you laugh. “I suppose we both must be strange to have found each other.” Deciding that you’ve spent more than enough time apart tonight, you tug on his hand. 

Lahabrea chuckles and snuggles you against his chest. He holds you there for a long moment as you stroke his back in turn, carefully navigating the sharp ornamentations on his robe, their shapes well known to you now. “If you wish,” he murmurs, “I could find a suitable body to possess. Do you not crave the mortal way of doing things?” 

You shake your head against him. “No. Not unless that would give  _ you _ more pleasure. You’ve brought me to heights I’ve never dreamt of. I’m certain you are the only one who could satisfy me now.” 

“So strange…,” he whispers as the light in your room dims. Lahabrea helps you to your feet and gathers you up in his arms. With the touch of leather along your jawline, he guides your lips to his. Beneath the scents of ash and smoke that suffuse his aether, you taste warmth and spice as he explores your mouth. He kisses you, lazy and deliberate, taking his time as if discovering you anew. 

Even after many nights like this, finding new ways to give and take, to blend and twine together, there has ever been a barrier between you and him. Though it’s worn thin, little more than heat shimmer in the desert, you were sure it would never be breached. Here in the face of new understanding, in the delicate way he lifts you off your feet and carries you to the bed, you feel it tremble and bow. When he settles over you, lips meeting yours once more, his darkness gently enfolding you, it fails. 

It is not a shattering but a dispersal, featherlight seeds scattered by the barest puff of breath and sent forth with a desperate wish. You are inundated by his aether - Its press is insistent, seeking, covering every ilm of your body, nigh eclipsing you. But now the barrier is gone. There is no fear, and you accept him without hesitation, sighing in delight against his lips at the convergence of your souls. His is the stygian glory of the void between stars and the amaranthine well from which they spring. Yet there are rents and tears throughout, memories frayed at their margins. Never have you seen it with such clarity, and now it courses through your being, its subtle vibrations forming words.  _ Don’t leave me. I know one day I’ll lose you to the march of years, but I need you now.  _

Distantly, you feel hot tears carve rivulets down along the curves of your face as you will your soul to embrace his in return and speak the words you too have been unable to say.  _ Never. Whether I was yours once long ago or not, I’m yours here and now. _ Amid the lampblack of guttering candles and the earthy heat of cloves and spices you have no name for, you taste the salt of the sea from him as well. This ancient heart, locked away and buried under millennia of loss and regret - and in your trembling hands there forms a key. Your fingers trace the cold metal of its minuscule form. Small though it may be, the profundity of it, the weight of it, is undeniable. 

Together you drift in this shared aetheric realm. When he first taught you how to see within, there was only white space - an empty room, though vast and shining. From your vantage point, you can see the changes wrought upon it even before this night. Stars of diamond and purple-tinged obsidian are strewn throughout that mysterious sky. Their placement seemed random at first but now you see it - A complex constellation waiting to be born. You hold out your hands and watch as the key, that tiny sacred thing, makes its way to the heart of it all and takes its place among the stars. 

Though you cannot yet divine the meaning behind its pattern, you are certain you will in time. You turn to Lahabrea, trying to speak, to lament that you don’t know how to return the gesture. You’d be offended by his grin if you couldn’t clearly feel that he finds your flailing endearing. He places a finger to your lips to quiet those unvoiced fears. Then you blink, and you’re back to your room, back in your bed, with him smiling down at you. 

Still, it feels unfair that he would grant you something so dear and you had no idea how... “You worry overmuch,” he says, bracing himself so he can run the back of a claw along your temple, carefully tucking a stray lock of hair behind your ear. “That you heard my tale and still accept me is enough. This you’ve done intentionally, fully aware of the truth.” Lahabrea slips his hand behind your head, bringing you close and brushing his lips over yours. “Even if no more of my memories return… That is enough.” 

His words are barely past his lips when he meets yours again with an utterly unbridled kiss. The abrupt shift from tenderness to pure need leaves you lightheaded as you fall back to the bed together. You close your eyes and lose yourself the myriad sensations unique to him. His metal talons threaten as his leather-clad fingers tangle in your hair. When he turns just so to deepen the kiss you feel the metal spikes of his pauldrons. They aren’t sharp enough to pierce through your robes yet they effectively pin you in place. He breathes out a laugh when you gasp, sweetness and singed spices filling your senses. In your mind you see incense, cloves, and herbs charing away on a hot stone, and there is  _ warmth _ . 

Radiating through leather and cloth, through the press of lips and swirling tongue, he is a being of living flame, darkly incandescent. Again you are struck by the profundity of his soul, the unfathomable splendor of his very being as it opens to you. Boundaries blur as your essences meet and eagerly flow around and through each other, becoming more than one and one. 

The night is spent in reverent exploration - tracing the arcane patterns and gleaming ornaments on his robes until he casts them away with a thought. In turn, he luxuriates in undressing you, removing each piece with nigh ritual gravity, before exploring you anew. 

As your bodies meet, your perception drifts between two worlds.

… His heated fingertips caressing your writhing form, as you cry out his name - 

… The sea of stars, parting to welcome and engulf in turn - 

Shadows cast by leaping flames adorn the walls, tracing lines of a painting primitive and wild, telling tales of the most earthly and ancient dance. Here, graceful figures entwine until the lines that define them blur together. There, harsh brushstrokes define arcing backs and imply ecstatic movement. 

You lie together in your shared bed in your little house, too small for this vast and monstrous being and the fathomless sea of night you share, yet somehow perfect. There is no more fear. Only two souls forever blended in ways no one looking upon them could understand. 

As he wraps himself around you, no longer a blaze, but like sitting in front of a fire on a frozen day, a new sensation awakens within you. Your face must show your surprise for he cups your cheek and utters a quiet, “shh, you’re fine.” Yet the furrow of his brow belies his confidence. In sharp contrast to his heat, cold blooms within your very core. Even your improved aetheric sight has a blindspot to the war being waged within you as that ice crashes against what you only see as searing blue light. Somehow you know that light has been a part of you that you’d been unaware of - a thing that stayed out of sight but had pressed against your inner realm like probing roots seeking a foothold. 

_ No. You’ll not take me, nor will you separate us! _ As you speak these words with conviction, unaware if they left your lips or were merely in your mind, you can see it now- Darkness of purest black surges forth in an icy torrent. When it crystallizes into spines and spears to pierce the light, your soul colors flash across its surface, honing it, strengthening it. As a united front, the invader is summarily cast out, evaporating into nothing. 

Though you first thought the scene was a half-dream, Lahabrea gives you a look of gobsmacked adoration. His reaction clears up exactly nothing but it is endearing, and you feel your cheeks heat up at his sudden unabashed sincerity. “How do you feel?” he asks.

Looking within for a moment, you feel that one last barrier has fallen. The stars shine with an intensity that nearly makes you wince until you adjust to it. Your internal world is now vast, as though walls you never knew existed had fallen down and gifted you a whole realm to tap into. Even your reserves of mana feel nigh-infinite - something you look forward to testing, after a good night’s sleep anyway. Physically, you feel like you’ve been running half the day. “Exhausted, but… somehow so much more than I was before. What… was that?” 

His expression is intense bordering on manic. “ _ Hydaelyn. _ Though you didn’t speak with her in this life, she’d gotten her claws in you still and marked you as her champion. Together with me you  _ rejected her. _ ” 

“This whole time she was keeping me blind to my potential?”

“And much more,” he huffs. 

Though everything you’d learned today went against what you’d learned and been told of the Mothercrystal, there was no denying the freedom that casting off her invisible chains granted you. Had you not called out to Lahabrea that fateful night, you would still be bashing your fists against a seal you didn’t even know was there. 

Yet that clear sense of victory still pales before the emotions welling again within you. You give yourself to their tides and pull Lahabrea close, losing yourself in the press of his lips and his warmth. 

***

“I… remember this,” he says, his head resting on your chest as you run your fingers through his hair. “Your touch, your heartbeat...I was exhausted, having worked days without sleep, and even when all was done, rest eluded me.” 

The scene he painted tugs at your memory. “I can see it now too, I think. I’m afraid to tell you though. I don’t want to find out it’s only my imagination.” 

“Tell me,” he implores, squeezing your knee to reassure you. “Truth or dream, I wish to hear it. Your words are precious to me.” 

"It was just before dawn. I'd fallen asleep in your study and awoken to near darkness. I see dim, guttering candles and smell the smoke of ones that had recently gone out. You’re there, chin resting in your hand, quill dangling from your fingers. Ink drips, vanishing as it soaks into your black robes.” Even as you speak, you are unsure of your vision. He looked different - subtle lines graced his cheeks and brow - but no less handsome. 

"You called my name." 

Your mouth moves to shape a name neither of you recall, yet you know it was his even if the syllables were lost to time. Perhaps… "I helped you to your bed and… you wouldn't let go, so I stroked your hair like this until you fell asleep."

"You  _ do  _ remember, as do I. My Mnemosyne, you found me again after all this time."

The constellation within flares to life with light and song. When you open your eyes hot tears cling to your lashes, making Lahabrea’s visage before you a blur. He brushes them away, leaving kisses in their place. Through the rest of the night, you whisper together, telling half-remembered stories of another life. Somber recollections of friends and family lost intersperse misadventures and nights not unlike this one. 

It is only after the candles have long lost their light and the hearth is silent that the two of you both finally find rest in each other’s arms. In sleep, you meet again in a shared dreamspace you build together from pieces of memory and hopes for the future. 


End file.
